Google+ Will Now Give Users Four Days Grace Period To Comply With Its Names Policy

by Shashank on August 12, 2011

Last week, Google+ was in the news for suspending accounts that did not use real names. Obviously, people were shocked to see their Google+ profiles being taken down without any notice or intimation. Even high-profile tech celebrities and bloggers were at the receiving end for failing to comply with Google’s Name policy.GOOGLE PLUS LOGO Google+ Will Now Give Users Four Days Grace Period To Comply With Its Names Policy

From today, the company will give its users four days grace period before taking down the account. Saurabh Sharma, a product manager on the Google+ team explains in the video the rational behind this.

He says,”If we find that your profile name does not adhere to our policy, we’ll give you a 4 day grace period to fix your profile name before we take further action. During this period, you can continue to use Google+ as usual. We’re hoping that most affected users will be able to quickly fix their profile name while continuing to enjoy all that Google+ has to offer. As always, Google believes you own your data. In the event you are unable to comply with our names policy, you can still take all your content with you, even after your profile is suspended. Visit Google Takeout for more details.”

Google+ has a long list of rules in its Names policy, you can read the entire details here. Below are some major ones:

1. Use your full first and last name in a single language.

2. Put nicknames or pseudonyms in the Other Names field.

3. Avoid unusual characters in your name.

4. Your profile and name must represent one individual.

5. Don’t use the name of another individual.

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  • http://twitter.com/Arantor Pete Spicer

    Let’s see how many ways this can be pulled apart.

    “1. Use your full first and last name in a single language.”

    What about people who only have one name? This is not as uncommon as you might think, especially in Indonesia. Also, different cultures have different rules about ‘first’ and ‘last’ name, especially in some languages that use multiple words to express a family name or given name.

    “2. Put nicknames or pseudonyms in the Other Names field.”

    This contradicts the edict stated up front that users should use the name which is how people know them by, and seems fairly clear that it isn’t for social purposes but something deeper.

    “3. Avoid unusual characters in your name.”

    What about people with apostrophes in their name? Or accented letters? Are you seriously suggesting that people should rename themselves to fit with Google’s narrow view of what names should look like?

    “4. Your profile and name must represent one individual.”

    A profile might, a name definitely won’t, especially if it’s something like ‘John Smith.’

    “5. Don’t use the name of another individual.”

    See above. What happens if I have the exact same name as another individual? In fact, I know that I do, I know of multiple people who have the same name as me, which means by definition whoever gets there first excludes the rest of us.

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